Driven by e-commerce platforms mainly Amazon and Flipkart, the smartphone sales for the Indian Diwali festive season (October 9 – November 8) grew a healthy 26 per cent year-on-year as compared to similar period last year (September 19 – October 18).

Online sale events such as “Flipkart Big Billion Day” and “Amazon Great Indian Festival” and OEM promotions (Mi.com) that offered huge discounts, No-cost EMI on debit and credit card on top smartphones and other attractive offers drive the smartphone sales. Flipkart stood out due to the most number of exclusives while Amazon benefitted some from the launch of OnePlus 6T.

“The top three smartphone brands, Xiaomi, Samsung and Realme captured 57 per cent of the overall Diwali festive season smartphone sales. Xiaomi sold the most number of smartphones during this period thanks to strong performance in online channels. Xiaomi widened the gap with Samsung which still did relatively well in offline channels capturing 30 per cent share,” said Tarun Pathak, Associate Director, Counterpoint Research.

Oppo’s online only brand Realme captured nine per cent share jumping to the third spot in the overall sales volume performance and also became the second largest in online segment with 18 per cent share.